


Born of Sorrow

by SAValentine



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Parent Death, back story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3207461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SAValentine/pseuds/SAValentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eirlys Lavellan had not been born into the Dalish clan. She had joined them through fire and death as a child, and she had always been fiercely loyal to her new family as a result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born of Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from putthepromptsonpaper and paperbending on tumblr.   
> "The memories of most children involve love, a family, and maybe a cherished swingset. Her childhood memories involved ash, sorrow, and the bones of a broken and forgotten house."

Eirlys and Aodh had not been born into the Lavellan clan. As children, they would have never heard of the Dalish. If their lives had been different, they may have gone their whole lives without even seeing a Dalish elf. Her parents had been fortunate among elves. She did not know how they had gotten the money for it, but her parents owned a small farm in Fereldan. 

They mostly farmed for themselves, but they had a few beehives and sold honey to the local cities for what they could not grow. It would have been a happy life to grow up in. 

Eirlys was six when it happened, and her brother, Aodh, was barely more than a babe. She did not recall ever seeing her mother practice magic as a child, but late one night there was a knock at the door. She recalled it as a booming noise that woke her from her sleep. She recalled peeking out of the room she shared with her baby brother towards the door.

Her father opened the door and a large man shoved his way in through the doorway. He had been made of metal and malice and he demanded to see their mother, the “she-elf”. Their father had said that he was alone, that there was no one else there. They had pushed him back and invaded the house.

Eirlys cowered back, shaking as she peered through the door. Four towering figures filled the small cabin and drew their swords. One was holding her father aloft by his neck as they asked him again. Her mother came out of the bedroom already carrying a staff. Her father shouted at her not to do it, but she had already begun casting.

"I will not leave my children!" She had shouted and ice crackled along the armor of the intruders. 

One was frozen in place, and the one helding her father dropped him. He fell heavily to the ground with a thud. Her mother raised her staff again and lightening crackled among them, but one charged her, smashing her body with a shield. Another focused, holding a hand towards her and she could not cast another spell. 

The blade of one of them rose up to strike her. She did not see her mother die, but she heard the scream of her death. Her father’s face filled the crack a moment later.

"Take your brother. Run into the woods." He whispered into the door.

She had only been six, but she knew it was important to listen. She turned from the door and gathered her brother in her arms, blanket and all. He had not woken until that moment and he gazed up at her sleepily. He was heavy in her arms, but he could not walk and she had no other choice.

She heard her father cry out in pain and tears starting streaming down her face. She wanted to turn back and see her parents, to help, but she had her brother, so she climbed out of the window. Her mother’s voice seemed to follow her, but it was not her own as she shouted at the men once more.

"You will not have them!" The roar that came from the main room was not human. 

Eirlys ran as far as she could. Past the fields she had played in; past the beehives with the bees flitting angrily about. She felt the heat of the fire behind her as she ran, but she didn’t dare look back. She ran until her legs gave out and she fell into the dirt, her brother’s cries echoing into the night.

She shushed him with shaking voice, biting back the bile in her throat. She dragged them to the nearest cover, a growth of blackberries that hung over the bushes. The thorns stung her as she crawled through them, protecting her brother from the vines as she made her way in. She found a small spot next to where the another plant bush had grown once, it’s branches a barrier between them and the blackberry vines. 

She wrapped the blanket around them and hummed to her brother until he stopped crying. And she had sat there, listening for the sounds of the monsters that had killed their parents. They never came. 

She had not been aware she had fallen asleep until a soft snuffling outside of the bushes woke her. She could barely see through the vines, but the shape of a wolf greeted her, her brother cooing at it through the branches. She quieted him with a hand over his mouth when it turned towards them, its nose pressing into the brush. Eyes wide, she dare not move as the wolf sniffed at them. There was a thump nearby and the wolf looked away from them. It spared a final glance before it ran off.

Her brother cried at the loss of the wolf, likely thinking it was a dog, and footsteps soon approached them. She was shaking in fear, trying to shush her brother desparely when the blackberry bush opened up, parted as if by magic. An elven face poked out of it and stared at them, their face marked with dark lines.

They turned their face away and called out in a language she did not recognize before turning back to the two children in the brush, smiling gently and extending their hand. At first, she shook her head, her whole body shaking with her as she held tight onto her brother. 

"Ma eth sahlin, da’len." The elf said to them, their voice soothing and so much like her mother’s secret words that it made her start to cry. The elf repeated themselves in the common tongue. "You are safe now, child."

She had left the small space of the blackberries and found herself greeted by a small group of elves with markings on their face, her brother in her arms. One of them, the one who had spoken to her, bent down and held them both in their arms. 

She and her brother had become Dalish then. She would later find that she had gone quite a distance from her home when the clan had found her. They had found the house earlier in the day, with the corpses of her parents and the Templars still in the ruins. She never returned to the home in her waking hours.


End file.
